Free The Door at the Top of the Stairs by Alison Naomi Holt

back to the present, she'll stop. I never said this would be a walk in the park. It'll be hell for all three of us. And I guarantee, it won't take a week or a month for all this to start. It's already here and it will only get worse before it gets better."
    Morgan reached over and turned Ryland's arm so she could read her watch. “Where is she anyway? It's already one-thirty. My vote is to do it, and if we're gonna do this, let's get it done so I can get back to work." She smiled at Ryland, who took her hand and walked with her to the door.
    It never ceased to amaze Ryland how quickly Morgan came to decisions and how quickly she wanted to get things done once she’d decided to do something. She put her hand on the door before Morgan could open it. "Morgan, I'll tell you what I told her.
    We have to see this to the end or we'll be doing more harm than good."
    Morgan nodded and pulled open the door. “Let's go find our powder keg, shall we?" They walked to the barn together and found Jesse cleaning out one of the stalls. Morgan got right to the point. “Where have you been? You think we've got all day to just sit around and wait for you?"
    "I'm done. I'm not coming anymore." Jesse walked out of the stall, grabbed some straw and carried it back to Barney's pen.
    Ryland shot a glance at Morgan, then slowly followed Jesse down the aisle. "We've just begun, Kiddo. We’re not even close to done."
    Jesse pushed past her on the way to get another armload of straw to spread on the stall floor. "I said I'm done. I know I was kidnapped. That's enough; I don't want to know anymore."
    "Jess, you're not done, and if you remember when we began, I told you once we start there's no turning back. We've opened Pandora's box, and we need to close it one way or the other. If you don't work on it here, I'll have to call Sheriff Carlson and have you involuntarily committed to St. Andrew's hospital where I can work with you there."
    Jesse stopped dead in her tracks.
    Morgan took down the notebook and started leafing through the pages, watching the two of them out of the corner of her eye.
    She concentrated on Ryland, trying to take her cue from her, not sure whether she was part of this battle. She reminded herself that her role was to allow Jesse to ground herself. Ryland's was playing God. She turned her attention to Jesse, whose face had gone beet red, her muscles taut. Oh shit , she thought as she slowly put down the notebook. Here we go .
    Ryland had her in a trap. Red appeared in front of Jesse's eyes and her pulse pounded in her head harder and harder until she growled and lunged, intending to get her out of her life once and for all.
    "Hey!" Morgan grabbed the back of Jesse's shirt and pulled her back. "What the hell do you think you’re doing? You think you can just throw that crap all over the barn and leave it like that?"
    She roughly turned Jesse around and pointed to the mess strewn across the otherwise spotless barn floor.
    Jesse blinked and focused on Morgan's face. She was surprised at what she'd just done and shifted her gaze to the straw on the floor.
    "Don’t just stand there. Get the wheelbarrow and broom and clean that shit up. What's the matter with you?" Morgan pushed her toward the cleaning supplies and went back to the oat bins. She held Ryland's eyes a minute, needing to know Ryland was still sure about what she was doing. When Ryland nodded, Morgan said,
    “This is going to take a while. You go on up to the house. We'll be up when we're done."
    Ryland calmly walked out of the barn, heading for the house.
    When she was out of earshot, she let out a shaky breath. “Why are we doing this, Morgan? What exactly have we gotten ourselves into?" The hardest part in dealing with repressed memories was that neither she nor Jesse knew exactly what had happened, so they were just groping in the dark. When she reached the house, she sat on the sofa and picked up the latest book she'd been studying.
    This particular book dealt